Photo // Rafael Tortolero
SOCIAL MEDIA IS CHANGING THE WAY WE SPEAK. Platforms like TikTok, Instagram and even texting have a significant effect on the slang we use.
By: Rafael Tortolero
Multimedia Specialist
Often we find ourselves using words or expressions out of the ordinary. Sometimes we don’t know exactly what these words mean or where they even came from. (Why is “knee surgery” tomorrow? Is this a good or bad thing?)
Younger generations have always had their own slang – even back to expressions like “da bomb”, “radical”, “tubular” or “groovy” – and even though we might find them funny or even cringeworthy now, they would have made you “cool” in a different time.
Nowadays we have terms like “slay”, “it’s giving”, “rizz” and even “skibidi”, the last of which no one really seems to know the meaning of. Although these words are often completely unrelated, they share the fact that they were popularized through the internet.
Language is always changing and has adapted to social change throughout history, but the internet seems to have accelerated those changes more than ever before. This is not only because of apps like TikTok or Instagram that can push a lot of content to a lot of people very quickly, but also our constant communication through text where we reinforce the language we pick up from social media and others. (Be honest – have you addressed a text to a friend with “chat”?)
A decade ago, words like “FOMO” and “YOLO” captured the attention of young people and were considered silly by most, but now those acronyms are integrated into daily life and have become words of their own. A more recent example is “GOAT”. Maybe other acronyms like “GRWM” will have a similar fate.
Historically, these kinds of phrases have been exclusive to groups of people separated by culture or geography, but due to the mass media technology we have, they spread globally, sometimes being appropriated from their origins. For example, expressions like “periodt,” “no cap,” “drip,” “lowkey” and many more originated in Black culture or Ebonics, even though many know them now as “TikTok slang”.
English is also predominant in “internet slang”, resulting in people all over the world using expressions that originated in the U.S. and translating them into their native languages and dialects or just adapting the English terms into their vocabulary. For example, some internet users report that the “Rizzler” is called “Le Charismeur” in the Quebec French dialect, but in France, he is just called “Le Rizzleur” or even “Le Rizzler”.
We’ve also noticed that some words change their meaning over time. This is called semantic shift. For example, the word awful originally meant “full of awe,” and now we use it to describe something terrible. This has happened recently in our generation, too: one clear example of this is the word “bad”, which has lately been used to describe someone as attractive, not as unpleasant.
The word “rawdog” is an example that is still in the process of a semantic shift. It started as a vulgar word to describe unprotected sex, but recently it has evolved to mean doing something with no preparation (“I didn’t study at all – I guess I’ll just rawdog this test.”). Still, the word does carry a crude connotation, so it is definitely not appropriate for a professional setting – but in ten years, maybe it will be.
Another recent change in the way we speak is called verbing, which is when you turn a noun into a verb, like “Googling” or “Xeroxing.” More recently, people will say things like “my hair is not hairing” on a bad hair day or “the math is not mathing” if things don’t add up.
As language continues to expand and evolve at fascinating rates, it’s amazing to see how a word we use today might change its meaning tomorrow. Whether it is through TikTok, texting or cultural blending, one thing is certain: this is our slang. It represents our identities, and it shows who we are as a generation.